Coming home from NYC last week I was greeted by a bloomin’ bonanza in my front yard. It was a great greeting. I’m not sure what kind of shrub it is but when the season is right it explodes. Unfortunatly it only lasts a couple of weeks and the petals soon dry up and fall to the ground below. As of right now, the the blooms are looking pretty pathetic. The heat expected over the next couple of days should do a good job of finishing them off mortal combat style. Enjoy the pics. Speaking of yard stuff, the lawn mower was stolen last weekend – how the fuck did that happen?
Category: nature
Artifacts
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Each day a different image or photograph is featured, with an accompanying caption, that deals with various topics in Earth Science
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A Complete Listing of World Wonders
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A how-to on making graffiti out of moss.
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Find music by tapping the rhythm of the song’s melody on your space bar. It guessed mine correctly: Windy by the Association
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The Para-Cycleâ„¢ is a powered parachute and a recumbent bicycle that becomes a street-legal ultralight aircraft – and I want one.
Silver Lining
The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association) here in Boulder, Colorado has issued an alert. The alert states that recently there have been large solar explosions (coronal mass ejections is what the scientists call them) on the sun. These flares are creating large x-ray bursts. The SEC (Space Environment Center) issues alerts at the M5 (5x10E-5 Watts/m2) and X1 (1x10E-4 Watts/m2) levels. As you can see here, this has happened three times in the past two days. Below is a photo of one of todays flares. Here is a great video (mpeg), constantly updated, of the sun’s activity.
There have been over 18 alerts given by the SEC during the last two days for large x-ray and radio-wave bursts. Strong solar radio bursts (those M5 and greater) may cause major disruptions in satellite and other spacecraft operations, power systems (thus knocking out electric power), high frequency communications, and navigation systems. High altitude aircraft crews and passengers on polar routs are also susceptible to radiation hazards during similar events. However, there is one cool bonus effect of coronal mass ejections… the northern lights become much more spectacular and even visible from the northern US.